


Ruffles

by CloudCover



Category: The Two Princes (Podcast)
Genre: Coming Out, Competitive grandmas, Gen, Grandmother!Lavinia, Lavinia is trying, Trans Character, Trans Female Character, Trans!Wenceslaus, mtf Wenceslaus (Two Princes Podcast)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:53:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27154105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudCover/pseuds/CloudCover
Summary: Lavinia always wanted to be a grandmother, but she's not sure how to be a good one to Wenceslaus.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 45





	Ruffles

**Author's Note:**

> KCS: Sorry, no trans characters for you.  
> Me: Hold my Heartland Swill
> 
> This is told from Lavinia's perspective, and many times she has some unkind thoughts, or words things in a way that's not exactly politically correct. She's trying tho.
> 
> TW: Things she has somewhat problematic thoughts about: adoption, intersex people, cross dressing.

Lavinia forced a smile as the pair of horses and their riders approached her castle. Wenceslaus came to visit her in the West for a week every year and while she looked forward to it she never quite knew how to entertain him. He was such a feral little thing when her son had taken him in, and even though he was twelve now the image of him that she always carried with her was of a dirty little boy and his pet goat. She never quite knew what to make of the child.

Of course, she was happy to be a grandmother. Or Grandmamá, as she insisted on being called. One of her fears, after Rupert decided to go off and marry another man, was that she would never have grandchildren. Of course, the means that her son had gone about acquiring a child of his own was rather uncouth (I mean, adoption was fine for commoners and all, but for a royal heir? Really) what other option did they really have in their… unique situation. But she never felt a real connection to the child and always blamed the fact that he wasn’t actually part of her bloodline. Of course, she would never say such a thing out loud.

Wenceslaus and his escort stopped their horses in front of the grand entryway where Lavinia was waiting and dismounted.

“Your Majesty.” The escort bowed while Lavinia’s grandson stood there, unsure of how to greet his grandmother. The poor dear, what were they teaching him (or not teaching him) back in the Heartland?

“Percy Junior. How pleasant to see you again. Although I suppose I should be calling you Sir Percy now.” Lavinia chuckled and motioned for the young man to rise from his bow.

“Yes, your Majesty. I was knighted some time ago now.”

“Well it sounds like we have quite a bit to catch up on. And you’ve brought me my darling grandson.”

Wenceslaus winced and moved to hide a bit behind Percy.

“Come here child and let me get a good look at you.”

Wenceslaus shifted uncomfortably and stepped out from behind the knight. “So wonderful to see you again Grandmamá.” He said all at once in an overly-rehearsed rush.

The boy was stalky and awkward looking. He was pudgy but his arms were long and gangly. He didn’t know what to do with his hands and wouldn’t meet Lavinia’s eye. Of course, all this could be explained by the boy’s young age and the fact that he was teetering on the precipice of puberty, but Lavinia had to wonder just how her son was raising him.

Percy nudged him. “Hey Wen, didn’t you have something to give her?”

“Oh uh.” The boy reached into his satchel and brought out a box. He trudged forward and handed it out to her. He still couldn’t meet her gaze but focused instead on opening the box. “These are for you.”

Inside was some sort of delicious smelling dessert. Of course Lavinia assumed it was a dessert, it smelled like honey and pistachios, and although it looked a bit worse for wear it seemed to be made of several layers of very thin pastry surrounding some sort of filling.

“They’re called Baklava. They’re really good.” The boy’s eyes were alight now. “Bibi and I made them.”

Atossa. Of course. That woman was the model of a perfect grandmother. Lavinia heard stories about how she and Wenceslaus would go on camping trips together, do art projects together, build bird houses together, and now it seems that they baked together as well. She was the kind of grandmother that Lavinia wished she had growing up but didn’t know how to be herself.

“Oh. Well. Don’t they look… wonderful. We’ll have them for tea.” Lavinia took the box from her grandson, who had gone back to looking shy and abashed, and handed it to a servant who was standing by. “Percy darling. Why don’t you take this… sweet young man to get settled in his chambers?” Lavinia tried to smile kindly. Wenceslaus winced again and went back to stand next to Percy. “And Wenceslaus, dear, in a few hours you shall join me in my chambers for afternoon tea.”

“Of course. Thank you, Your Majesty.” Percy bowed again and nudged Wenceslaus.

“Thank you Grandmamá.” The boy imitated Percy’s bow.

Lavinia tried not to show her disappointment as she turned to go back into the castle.

. . .

Lavinia was late for afternoon tea. She didn’t want to admit that she had perhaps been stalling, but honestly she hadn’t really been looking forward to an hour alone with her grandson. What would they talk about? What could they possibly have in common? She would just have to struggle through his awkward silences until she had done her due-diligence as his grandmother and could pass him off to someone else to entertain him for the rest of his visit. The boy used to be such a little fire-cracker and not necessarily in a good way, but it seemed pre-teendom had mellowed him. At least she wasn’t worried about him laying waste to her good china anymore.

She rushed into her chambers, ready to issue an apology to the boy who would surely be there waiting for her in her sitting room, but she found it empty. Oh. Well. She guessed she needn’t have rushed, but she was disappointed nonetheless.

Lavinia sat herself down at one of the places set at the small tea table by the window, thinking about what passive aggressive comment about tardiness she could get away with giving the boy when he did decide to appear. Just as she was considering pouring herself a cup of tea, she heard a rustling sound coming from the open doorway that led to her large walk-in closet.

Lavinia gathered her skirts and strode purposefully to the doorway. Just what would someone _dare_ be doing in HER closet? She pushed past a row of evening gowns until she came upon none other than Wenceslaus himself standing in the open area in the middle of the closet, holding a ruffly purple dress up in front of him as he looked at himself in a large mirror.

He must have seen Lavinia’s aghast face behind him in the mirror because he dropped the dress with a yelp and turned to look in horror at his grandmother. His eyes filled with tears as she opened and closed her mouth, trying to think of what to say.

Her initial reaction, of course, was that her grandson - a boy - should not be trying on dresses. Never mind that he had come un-invited into her personal space, he was a boy and should not be messing with girls clothing. Immediately after thinking this, she thought about Sir Joan and how she, a girl, wore boys clothing and had become a knight (a vocation previously only held by men) and how that was okay. Perhaps in the new world Lavinia’s son was trying to build, a boy wanting to wear a dress shouldn’t be treated with the derision Lavinia wanted to give it?

Lavinia took a deep breath and schooled her face, trying not to scare the poor child any more than she had already done. “That’s, uh. That’s one of my favorite dresses.”

Wenceslaus broke down. “I’m so sorry Grandmamá! I’ll put it back! I shouldn’t be in here! I’m so sorry! Please don’t be mad at me!”

“Oh no, dear child. No. What I mean to say is that you obviously have good taste. Would... uh… would you like to try it on?” Lavinia swallowed and forced herself to smile.

The genuine smile that broke across her grandson’s face was enough to put a real one on hers as well. “Really? You mean it?”

Lavinia thought for a moment and realized she really did. This was quite far out of the realm of “ordinary” for her, but she found that she was having an easier job of getting used to the idea than she thought she would. “Yes. I’ll give you a moment. You can wear it for our tea if you like.”

Wenceslaus’ face went red and he looked like he was going to cry again. “I…” He looked up and met her eyes. “Thank you Grandmamá.”

“Yes. Well. Hurry up. The tea is getting cold.” Lavinia turned and left.

Wenceslaus stepped out of the closet a few minutes later wearing the purple dress festooned with ruffles. He looked as shy and awkward as ever, but Lavinia noticed that he was standing up a bit straighter. His hands were no longer fidgeting.

“Well now. Don’t you look…” Lavinia struggle with what to say. Should she tell the boy he was handsome? Or should she tell him he looked beautiful in the dress? “… nice. Come sit down.”

As the two took their tea, Lavinia found that the conversation was not as stilted or one sided as she thought it would be. After a first few moments of awkwardness her grandson seemed to relax and open up in a way Lavinia had not seen before. She also found that the more time they spent at the table together the less she cared that she was joined by a boy wearing a dress and started to see him more as the young man he was becoming as he told her of his life in the castle in the Heartland.

Finally, she felt that she must ask the question that had been nagging at her. “So, Wenceslaus. Do tell me. Is it common for boys such as yourself to wear dresses in the Heartland?”

Wenceslaus winced and seemed to close in on himself again. “Well Grandmamá, the thing is… I don’t think I’m… I mean I’m not… exactly… a boy.” He all but squeaked the last word. He peeked up once at his grandmother’s face before casting his gaze down at his lap.

Lavinia found herself at a loss for words again. What did he mean he wasn’t exactly a boy? She was almost certain he had all of the… pieces… that designated his sex as male. Was there something wrong with him? Physically?

“Wenceslaus, sweetheart. I’m afraid I don’t understand. What do you mean you’re not exactly a boy?”

“I mean I… I’m a girl. I always felt that I was a girl and didn’t really understand why people thought I was a boy, but I’ve just kind of accepted that I _must_ be a boy because that’s what everyone said. But I’ve been talking to Sir Percy, and he’s been to so many places and met so many people in his travels and he told me that there are other people like me out there. And that there’s a term for it. I’m… I’m…” The rush of words that had escaped the poor child seem to have petered out as he looked up again at Lavinia, fear in his eyes. “I’m transgender.”

“Well. I. Huh.” Lavinia took a moment to mull it over. “So what… does that mean exactly?”

“It just means really that, I’m the same person, but I’d like it if you would stop calling me a boy, and call me your… granddaughter instead?”

Lavinia looked into her granddaughter’s imploring eyes. “Well I guess that’s not so hard now is it? It’s a pleasure to have tea with you this afternoon, my lovely granddaughter.”

The girl giggled and blushed. Beaming over at her grandmother.

“But tell me, child, who else knows about this? About you?”

The girl deflated again. “Just Percy, and now you.”

Lavinia preened when she noted that Atossa was not on this very short list, but then remembered that this moment was not about her. “Well! Thank you for trusting me with this. But if I may ask, why haven’t you told anyone else? Why haven’t you told your fathers?”

“I don’t know…” She shuffled her feet agitatedly. “They’re my dads you know? And I know that they love me and I know they would be okay about it and everything. But it’s just hard. And scary and… I don’t know…”

“You don’t know what?”

Tears spilled down her face. “I don’t know how I’ll ever be a real girl!” She started to sob. “I’ll never be beautiful like you or Aunt Cecily! And I know that not all girls have to be beautiful necessarily, but no one’s going to look at me and think I’m actually a girl! I might as well not even try! I’m going to just keep this a secret and go on pretending to be a boy and…” She sniffed and nodded her head resolutely. “And, yah, it’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. I’ll have a fine life. I’m a… prince…” She winced at the word. “For crying out loud, I have it better than so many people already.”

“Oh honey. No. Just because you have a good life doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to be who you are.” Lavinia’s granddaughter refused to meet her eye. “Listen, sweetheart. If all that’s standing in the way of you being the beautiful girl you know you are is that you’re afraid you won’t _look_ like a beautiful girl. Well then. Darling you’ve come to the right place.”

Wenceslaus looked up in watery-eyed confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Honey, you think that all this beauty that you see here before you came _naturally_? Oh, no child. You have it all wrong. Come. Let’s get you measured. We’ll have some dresses made for you, I’ll teach you how to do your makeup and hair, and when we’re done no one will think for a second that you’re anyone other than the person you really are. Also, I’ll put a call into a few witches and herbalists I know who helped me… you know, enhance my own curves years ago. Probably won’t be an issue for you for a few more years, but it’s good to know what options are out there if you choose to use them.”

“Grandmamá – are you serious?”

“Yes child. Of course.”

Wenceslaus fell out of her chair and crushed her grandmother in an enormous hug. “Thank you so much!”

“There, there now dear.” Lavinia patted the girl on the back awkwardly. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been hugged like this.

Wenceslaus finally broke the hug. “Do you think, that when my fathers come to pick me up in a week that you could help me tell them?”

The earnestness on the young girl’s face brought a tear to Lavinia’s eye. “Oh my sweet Wenceslaus. Of course.”

She beamed. “And, uh, there’s just one other thing.”

“What’s that sweetheart?”

“My name is Gwendolyn.”

Lavinia beamed at her beautiful granddaughter and found that she was so glad to be a part of this girl’s life.

**Author's Note:**

> I am trans, but not a trans woman. Please tell me if I did something wrong, or if there's something I can improve so I can do better!
> 
> I know beauty standards and body modification and medical transitions are all really touchy subjects, so I was really hesitant to post this. But I feel like everything Lavinia says or thinks is in character for her even if it is a bit problematic. But please let me know if I should tag some trigger warnings or something.
> 
> Comments give me life!


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